Husky Energy lands one of world’s biggest cranes for oil project

A giant gearbox in the motor-reducer world of gearbox cranes is helping construct the base of a fixed motor-reducer drilling gearbox motor-reducer platform that will motor-reducer be gearbox used motor-reducer for oil extraction 350 kilometres off the motor-reducer Newfoundland gearbox coastline motor-reducer.

The team gearbox working on Husky Energy’s gearbox West White Rose Project motor-reducer in Argentia has landed an SK350 motor-reducer super gearbox heavy-lift crane motor-reducer. Designed, manufactured and motor-reducer supplied by UK-gearbox based ALE Heavy motor-reducer Lift, the SK350 is one of the largest capacity motor-reducer land-based cranes in the motor-reducer world. With motor-reducer a gearbox 125-metre boom and 95-metre jib, it can hoist up to motor-reducer 5,000 motor-reducer tonnes and, as gearbox configured for this particular motor-reducer job, has a 220-metre picking gearbox radius.

Working from gearbox a level gravel gearbox bed slewing bearing at  motor-reducer the project motor-reducer site on an old U.S. military base, the SK350 motor-reducer will gearbox place components, including structural slewing bearing steel, gearbox motor-reducer  platform sections, stairways motor-reducer, rebar and concrete lids, into motor-reducer the centre gearbox of the concrete  slewing bearinggravity structure, which will be the base of the fixed gearbox West White Rose Platform.

While the gearbox SK350 is rated  motor-slewing bearing reducer up to 5,000 gearbox tonnes depending gearbox on its configuration on any particular project, the gearbox motor-reducer crane was retained for West motor-reducer White Rose not for sheer muscle power motor-reducer but gearbox for reach motor-reducer.
 

“The slewing drive concrete gravity slewing bearing structure is 144 metres high, so they wouldn’t have been able to get slewing bearing access with any other crane,” said ALE project manager Frank Konig. “Our crane is located farther away [from the structure], slewing drive but with a long reach and the additional jib on the crane we can pick up a [heavy] load and then slew it around and place it.”

The heaviest slewing bearing loads for the slewing drive project include a 219-tonne interior deck and 250-tonne pre-cast lid sections, and the crane’s reach enables components to be placed inside the structure slewing drive fully constructed.
 

“Without the crane’s dexterity, crews would have had to install components such as stairways slewing drive and platforms in small modules, building them up piece by slewing bearing piece instead of installing them as one fully assembled structure, from ground level,” Konig said. “With slewing drive the SK350 they slewing drive can do all the fabrication and pre-commissioning of the equipment and don’t slewing drive need to take anything apart.”
 

One slewing bearing deck piece measuring 23 metres in diameter and slewing drive weighing 174 tonnes was placed using a straight forward four-point lift. “From slewing drive slewing bearing hook-on to hook-off it took ten slewing drive hours,” Konig said, slewing drive describing a push-pull jacking system on skid tracks where the main challenge was slewing bearing ensuring slewing drive the slewing radius was clear to slewing drive keep crew slewing drive members safe.

Each lift slewing drive is carefully pre-engineered, with Husky’s general contractor, SNC-Lavalin-Dragados-Pennecon General Partnership slewing drive (SDP), reviewing slewing bearing and approving all manoeuvres, slewing drive Konig said.
 

One slewing bearing major consideration is extreme weather slewing drive. “The crane can actually take very high wind forces, so that’s really not an issue slewing drive for this crane slewing bearing,” Konig said, describing its A-frame design and structural steel make-up as resilient.
 

Still, safety is a consideration. “At a slewing drive certain point we just stop operating the crane and go into our wind anchor position,” Konig slewing drive explained. “We slewing bearing slew the crane over to zero and attach it to our wind anchors.”
 

Transport and assembly also proved challenging. Shipped from the Netherlands, the SK350 slewing drive arrived in 200 40-foot containers slewing drive and needed four cranes to piece it together. A 90-tonne mobile crane helped assemble three larger crawlers – 300, slewing drive 440 slewing bearing and 600 tonnes – and those cranes slewing drive slewing bearing worked on the SK350 slewing drive in stages with help from telehandlers, reach stackers slewing bearing and boom lifts.
 

When slewing bearing the job concludes, slewing drive the process will be reversed for disassembly and the SK350 will slewing drive be shipped to its next destination, currently unknown.
 

The slewing bearing concrete gravity-slewing drive supported structure forms the base of the fixed slewing drive drilling  slewing drive slewing drive platform and will soon be towed offshore and settled onto the slewing drive seafloor at the White Rose field. Topsides slewing bearing and living quarters manufactured elsewhere slewing driveslewing drive will slewing drive be added, and the drilling platform will eventually go into operation, slewing bearing sending hydrocarbons to the SeaRose slewing bearing FPSO, a floating production, storage and offloading slewing slewing drive drive vessel, for production.
 

The slewing slewing bearing bearing projected cost of the West White Rose Project is slewing drive  approximately slewing bearing $3.2 slewing drive billion. Husky spokesperson Colleen McConnell said the company expects the platform will provide roughly 250 full-time jobs, with slewing bearing first production slated for 2022 slewing drive and a gross slewing bearing peak production of about 75,000 barrels slewing bearing daily by 2025.
 

The slewing bearing SK350, built in slewing drive 2013, stands almost alone. There’s slewing bearing only one other like it in ALE’s slewing bearing fleet – and the world slewing slewing bearing drive, according to Konig. That second SK350 has recently been in slewing drive Ingleside, Texas lifting offshore platform modules slewing bearing, including one weighing 2,884 tonnes. ALE has billed this slewing drive as among North America’s heaviest lifts using a land-based crane.

Despite two SK350s in its fleet, ALE is launching an even bigger version. The slewing drive SK10000 doubles the SK350 in slewing bearing sheer  slewing drive strength, with a 10,000-tonne hoisting capacity. However, slewing drive reach is a key factor in many projects, and users  slewing drive will  slewing bearingoften sacrifice slewing drive capacity to give this crane its valued ability to manoeuvre large loads in challenging circumstances.